Every Labor Day weekend, SiriusXM produces some version of a show in which they play the top 100 songs of the 1960s, “as chosen by our listeners.”
I don’t know exactly how listeners vote on this — and I never have — but it’s always fun, and I try to catch part of it…I wonder, as an aside, if anyone ever plants themselves in their car or residence and listens to all 100.
I don’t have a top 100 or even a top 10, but, as you know, I like to weigh in occasionally with songs I’ve heard recently that I really like. When I happen to have pen and paper with me when I’m driving, I’ll sometimes make note of songs I like and want to pass on to you readers.
This Labor Day weekend I’m going to write about just one song, a song that’s been haunting me for weeks — “You Were on My Mind” by We Five.
I’ve always liked the song, at the same time, never thought much about it or considered it anything special. After I heard it several weeks ago, however, I started gaining a better appreciation of it and seeing its brilliance.
Two things in particular have struck me about this song. First, it’s universally human. Haven’t we all woken up at some time — many times — with someone on our minds? In the song’s context, it’s obviously a boyfriend or girlfriend and most likely (“I’ve got wounds to bind”) an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend. And don’t we all know about that!?
The second thing is how the song starts off gently but increases in intensity and then ends in a veritable crescendo, with the final, echoing guitar chord.
The song was written by Sylvia Fricker in 1961. According to Wiki, Fricker wrote the song while sitting in a bathtub in a suite at a hotel in Greenwich Village — sitting in the tub not taking a bath but trying to avoid the roaches everywhere else in the room.
She and her future husband, Ian Tyson, recorded it in 1963 under the names Ian & Sylvia. Their version, which I would call low-key country, bears no resemblance to the We Five version. The Ian & Sylvia original starts off with a guitar lead-in that is very similar to the lead-in to the Rooftop Singers’ 1962 song “Walk Right in,” which is catchy but, to me, irritating and cheesy. And, I’ve got to say, the Ian & Sylvia original version of “You Were on My Mind” also strikes me as irritating and cheesy. Almost worse, it’s flat. Instead of increasing in intensity, it drones along and ends with the anti-climax of a tied soccer game.
In 1965, Michael Stewart, the founding member of We Five, which came out of California’s Bay Area, saw the song’s potential. He slightly changed the lyrics and melody and came up with an arrangement that transformed the song from blah to combustible.
Where the Ian & Sylvia original went nowhere, the We Five cover reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in September 1965. Not only that, but Billboard later ranked the record as the No. 4 song of 1965, behind “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, “I Can’t Help Myself” by the Four Tops and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones.
The other key member of We Five was lead singer Beverly Bivens. Although her voice blends in with the voices of the four males, the song would be nothing without her energy and captivating presence.
Unfortunately for We Five, she left the group in 1966, and that was essentially the end of We Five.
Bivens did not sing publicly again until the opening of an exhibition revolving around the rock scene in the Bay area in the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. She is now 74 or 75, presumably still living in California.
Stewart, the brother of John Stewart of The Kingston Trio, went on to become a record producer and a developer of music software. He died on November 13, 2002 at age 57.
One of the joys of researching this song was coming across a live, 1965 performance on the TV show Live on Hollywood Palace. If you’re like me, you’ll be jumping out of your chair by the one minute, 20 second mark. It’s sensational. Attesting to that is that it’s had almost 3.5 million views.
Here you go, then, “You Were on My Mind” by We Five.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I was blessed as a child because i could listen to CKLW (Detroit on the Canadian side) that played all of the Motown stuff, WLS that played the rock and my favorite late at night was when WLAC in Nashville switched from country for a few hours and played the blues. Everything from Jimmy Reed to Bobbly Bland and Little Junior Parker. I would listen to it under my covers on my transistor radio from 10 until midnight everyday and then sleep through my first class in the morning.
I remember the listening-in-bed transistor days myself, except I was glued to Cincinnati Reds games on the West Coast. Usually, the Dodgers and Giants got the best of them.
Yikes, bad indeed. They should have found another line of work — their version of “Early Morning Rain” popped up and it’s just as bad. Gordon Lightfoot — who wrote it — does a much better job…Good day to be listening to oldies and binging on the Yellowstone marathon.
I’d never heard of the Yellowstone series or the Paramount Network until I saw your post and Googled it. Sounds interesting.
Your comment about not having a top 10 reminds me of a fellow movie buff’s response when asked what his favorite was. “People who like movies may have a favorite, but people who LOVE movies know it is impossible to have just one”
And then a few years later along came Wayne Carson with his (You Were) Always on My Mind, Recorded by Elvis, Willie Nelson and Brenda Lee. I mixed them up and sometimes thought they were the same song.
I had forgotten about that song, Peg.